News

Ben Eggleton wins NSW Scientist of the Year Award in Physics and Astronomy

By Katynna Gill

12 September 2008

Professor Ben Eggleton, from the School of Physics at the University of Sydney, has won the Physics and Astronomy Category of the inaugural NSW Scientist of the Year Awards.

Professor Ben Eggleton won the Physics and Astronomy category of the NSW Scientist of the Year Awards.

Presented by the NSW Office for Science and Medical Research, the NSW Scientist of the Year Awards recognise and reward the state's leading researchers for cutting edge work that generates economic, health, environmental or technological benefits for NSW.

Professor Eggleton received his award and $5 000 prize money on 11 September at a ceremony at Government House in Sydney.

As Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) at the University of Sydney, Professor Eggleton's research includes efforts to vastly increase the speed of the Internet by developing a photonic chip that uses light rather than electronic signals, replacing the need for routers that slow data transmission.

Professor Eggleton is regarded as a world leading researcher and pioneer in the fields of optical physics and photonics, whose work has consistently generated new science at the frontiers of optical physics.

Having conducted fundamental research into a new class of nanostructured optical fibres, called 'photonic crystal fibres', Professor Eggleton was the first to use these fibres in optical devices.

Professor Eggleton pioneered the new field of optofluidics, which is the marriage of photonics and microfluidics, which deals with the manipulation of fluids on the sub-millimetre scale. His research demonstrated innovative optical fibres whose properties can be dynamically tuned using microfluidic control. He recently extended this concept to tunable integrated photonic circuits. This research is now being pursued by dozens of groups around the world and underpins new technologies in bio-medical sensing.

The inaugural 2008 NSW Scientist of the Year Awards involved nine category awards each offering $5 000 prize money as well as the overall NSW Scientist of the Year award valued at $40 000.